Aside from announcing our annual sale, I want to share with you an email I recently received that helped to strengthen my passion for DIY menswear fashion.

A few weeks ago I received an email from Yohannah of the Homestead Craft Village in Texas. She was inquiring about becoming a wholesaler of our patterns since she is a weaving and spinning instructor who hopes to use the Goldstream Peacoat pattern in a future class. While it is always lovely to hear of another DIYmenswear class in the works, what really caught my attention is the format of the class and the story she told me about her students. Matt and I love to learn about homesteading skills (we’re pretty passionate about everything from cheesemaking to knifemaking…and of course sewing fits in with this theme too!), so the idea of a homesteading village where traditional skills are shared really took our fancy. Their websites make me want to hop on a plane and head to Texas for a weekend goat keeping class!

The format of Yohannah’s weaving class has successfully engaged a group of teenage boys and taught them many traditional skills. I love that they get to experience both the weaving of the textile and the transformation of the textile into a garment that they will wear for many years. As Yohannah explained, “I currently have a group of high school boys that have been taking classes for a few years. Last year they made wool fabric to make themselves black and red buffalo check jackets. This year they have made a charcoal grey wool fabric that I fulled for them and now we are making them pea coats. I got your pattern and LOVE it!!! (They wove material to make a shirt and they’re talking about making pants next year…).”

After hearing about this, I was intrigued and of course had to see photos! Yohannah kindly sent me these images which were part of a display at their annual Homestead Fair.

Those shirts look like they could have been purchased from high end wool workwear companies such as Filson or Pendleton! They did such an amazing job weaving their fabric and look justifiably proud.

I hope the boys will be just as pleased with their Goldstream Peacoat project and that their passion for textiles continues into adulthood. Way to go, Yohannah and the Homestead Craft Village team for encouraging boys to work with textiles and for helping them to create projects that they are proud to wear!

Do you have any similarly inspiring stories of boys and men becoming engaged in textiles and sewing through education? Or maybe you are or know of a self taught male sewist? I’d love to hear of men who sew or otherwise work with textiles – please comment on this post with your story! One of my main reasons for starting a menswear specific sewing pattern company was to encourage men to sew for themselves…and yet so few of our current customers are men. Let’s hear from more men who create their own clothing – I know you are out there and are very talented and passionate!

Oh man, I’d love to take a course like that! The boys all look so proud! That’s a pretty amazing process. I work with much younger students, but the boys are as enthusiastic about the sewing machine as a the girls…and in a few years you can have your little munchkin (congratulations!) push the pedal, too. : ) A four-year-old knocked my socks off recently when he remembered to lower the foot before sewing, a full week after I showed him how!